STF invites you to get into the act

A poster for the 2025 Shekou Theater Festival. Photos courtesy of STF 

The 2025 Shekou Theater Festival (STF) is being held in Shekou until Nov. 16. 

The festival features 11 original plays that blend multiple languages and are performed in unconventional spaces such as marketplaces, streets, schools, parks and even a dental clinic. Themes range from puppetry to Western classics and urban memories.

One of the highlights, "Yet So Far" by Belgian theater group Fieldworks, invites audiences to engage with the surrounding environment. The group — fresh from winning "Best Dance Performance" at Heddaprisen 2025, Norway’s top performing-arts honor — is skilled at blending architecture, memory, and body movement. 

This play encourages viewers to rediscover Shekou at the border of reality and imagination. The show, which brings together artists from Norway, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Latvia, and China, was created exclusively for STF.

“Infernoing” by Pupa Theater draws on Dante’s “Inferno.” Performers on stilts, cast as hellish guides, interact with the audience. Blending dance, circus, metal music, and cosplay, the piece transforms ancient allegory into a journey that probes the desires and confusion at the core of the human condition.

Posters for "Yet So Far" and“Infernoing.” 

The plays were mostly developed over three months this summer in incubation camps and writing workshops led by experienced mentors. These works, which were selected from numerous scripts and proposals submitted in mid-April, blend theatrical elements and storytelling techniques.

Moreover, four new scripts — “About Their Love for Us,” “The General of the Burning Pestle,” “The Third Eyes,” and “Needed? or not. Success for Moles.” — will be featured as staged readings, providing an immersive theater experience.

Scan the QR code to purchase tickets.